The thought of her in prison was never out of his mind, and it was a nightmare prison he thought of. In the first warm September days he imagined the leaden, airless heat of cells. When October turned suddenly cold and windy he remembered how she was accustomed to playing golf on the windy links and how he had once seen her driving from a tee near the roadside with her skirts wrapped about her by her vigorous swing. He gave up playing bridge--the memories were too poignant. And after Eleanor had once mentioned that Lydia was fond of dancing he could not listen to a strain of dance music. Christmas was a particularly trying time to him, with all its assumption of rejoicing--a prison Christmas!
During the holidays he was in New York for a few days. His theory was that lack of exercise was the reason for his not sleeping better. He used to take long walks in the afternoon and evening so as to go to bed tired.
One afternoon at twilight he was walking round the reservoir in the Park when he recognized something familiar in a trim little figure approaching him--something that changed the beat of his heart. It was Miss Bennett. He stopped her, uncertain of his reception.
"Is that Mr. O'Bannon?" she said, staring up at him in the dim light.
The city beyond the bare trees had begun to turn into a sort of universal lilac mist, punctuated with yellow dots of light. It was too dark for Miss Bennett to see any change in O'Bannon's appearance, anything ravaged and worn, anything suggesting an abnormal strain. Miss Bennett, though kind and gentle, was not imaginative about turbulent, irregular emotions, such as she herself did not experience. She was not on the lookout for danger signals.
She did not feel unfriendly to O'Bannon. On the contrary she admired him. She could, as she said, see his side of it. She prided herself on seeing both sides of every question. She greeted him cordially as soon as she was sure it was he. He turned and walked with her. They had the reservoir to themselves.
Miss Bennett thought it more tactful not to refer to Lydia. She began talking about the beauty of the city. Country people always spoke as if all natural beauty were excluded from towns, but for her part----